In the past three months, the Chinese Government has
made great success in combating the Falun Gong Cult. In
order to prevent and combat such cults in the future, the
Standing Committee of the National People's Congress adopted
a legislative resolution on banning heretic cults on Oct.
30. On the same day, the Supreme People's Court and the
Supreme People's Procuratorate also issued judicial
explanations on laws regarding cult-related crime. The
Chinese Embassy hereby provides the contents of the
above-mentioned documents and other relevant information for
your better understanding of the true nature of the Falun
Gong Cult and the Chinese Government's efforts to maintain
social stability and protect the welfare of its people.

BEIJING,
October 30 -- The 12th Session of Standing Committee of the
National People's Congress (NPC) today adopted a resolution
concerning the banning of heretic cult organizations,
prevention measures against them and punishment for cult
activities.

The following is the full text of
the NPC resolution:

To maintain social
stability, protect the interest of people, safeguard reform
and opening up and the construction of a modern socialist
country, it is necessary to ban heretic cult organizations,
and prevent and punish cult activities.

Based
on the Constitution and other related laws, the following
decision is hereby made:

1. Heretic cult
organizations shall be resolutely banned according to law
and all of their criminal activities shall be dealt with
severely.

Heretic cults, operating under the
guise of religion, Qigong or other illicit forms, which
disturb social order and jeopardize people's life and
property, must be banned according to law and punished
resolutely.

People's courts, people's
procuratorates, public security, national security and
judicial administrative agencies shall fulfill their duties
in carrying out these tasks.

To be severely
dealt with according to law are those who manipulate members
of cult organizations to violate national laws and
administrative regulations, organize mass gatherings to
disrupt social order, and fool others, cause deaths, rape
women, swindle people out their money and property or commit
other crimes with superstition and heresy.

The
principle of combining education with punishment should be
followed in order to unify and instruct the majority of the
deceived public and to mete out severe punishment to the
handful of criminals.

During the course of
handling cult groups according to law, people who joined
cult organizations but were unaware of the lies being spread
by the group shall be differentiated from criminal elements
who organize and take advantage of cult groups for illegal
activities and/or to intentionally destroy social stability.

The majority of the deceived members shall not
be prosecuted, while those organizers, leaders and core
members who committed crimes shall be investigated for
criminal conduct; those who surrender to the authorities or
contribute to the investigations shall be given lesser
punishments in accordance with the law, or be exempt from
punishment.

3. Long-term, comprehensive
instruction on the Constitution and the law should be
carried out among all citizens, knowledge of science and
technology should be popularized and the national literacy
level raised. Banning cult organizations and punishing cult
activities according to law goes hand in hand with
protecting normal religious activities and people's freedom
of religious belief.

The public should be
exposed to the inhumane and anti-social nature of heretic
cults, so they can knowingly resist influences of cult
organizations, enhance their awareness of the law and abide
by it.

4. All corners of society shall be
mobilized in preventing and fighting against cult
activities, and a comprehensive management system should be
put in place. People's governments and judicial bodies at
all levels should be held responsible for guarding against
the creation and spread of cult organizations and combating
cult activities. This is an important, long-term task that
will ensure social stability.

China's top judicial and procuratorial
organs, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's
Procuratorate, also declared that the explanations take
effect as of today.

Under the explanations
jointly issued by the two departments, "cult
groups" in Article 300 in the Criminal Law refers to
those illegal groups that have been found using religions,
Qigong or other things as a camouflage, deifying their
leading members, recruiting and controlling their members
and deceiving people by molding and spreading superstitious
ideas, and endangering the society.

Section 1
of Article 300 in the Criminal Law stipulates that "
those who organize superstitious sects and secret societies
or use superstition to violate laws or administrative
regulations" are subject to three to seven years
imprisonment, and those whose cases are extremely serious
are subject to seven years imprisonment or more".

Under Section 2 and 3 of the article, those
who set up or use superstitious sects and secret societies
or superstition to deceive people and cause death of others
are subject to the penalties as indicated in the previous
section.

Under the two sections, those who
organize and use superstitious sects, secret societies or
superstitions to sexually exploit women or swindle money or
property should be punished according to articles on rape
and swindle in the Criminal Law.

Under the
explanations, those who organize and use sects and commit
one of the following activities should be penalized
according to Section 1, Article 300 in the criminal law:

I. gathering people together to besiege and
charge government organs, enterprises or institutions, and
disrupt their work, production and teaching and research
activities;

II. holding illegal assembly,
demonstrations to incite or deceive, or organize their
members or others to besiege, charge, seize, disrupt public
places or places for religious activities, or disrupt social
order;

III. resisting departments concerned to
ban their groups, or resuming the banned groups, or
establishing other sects, or continuing their activities;

IV. instigating, deceiving or organizing their
members or others to refuse fulfilling their legal
obligations, and the case is serious;

III. publishing,
printing, duplicating and distributing, either in terms of
volumes or sales values, a large amount of publications
spreading fallacious ideas and printing symbols of sects;
and

IV. instigating, deceiving or organizing
their members or others to violate state laws,
administrative regulations, and resulting in serious
consequences.

Under the explanations, setting
up or using superstitious sects, secret societies or
superstition to deceive people and cause death of others in
Section 2 and 3 of Article 300, refers to the cases of
establishing or using sects to mold, spread superstition or
fallacies, deceiving their members or others to practice
fast, inflict wounds upon themselves, or prevent patients
from taking normal medical treatment and resulting in
deaths.

The explanations says it will be a
"serious offense" if the following occurs:

I. causing three deaths or more;

II. causing fewer than three deaths but
serious injuries for many people;

III. those
who have received criminal or administrative penalties for
engaging in cult activities continue to establish or use
sects to deceive people and result in deaths; and

VI. causing other special serious
consequences.

Under the explanations, those
who establish or use sects to mold, spread superstition and
fallacies, instigate and coerce their members or others to
commit suicide or inflict wounds on themselves, should be
punished according to laws on intended murder or intended
harming offenses under causes in the criminal law.

Those who organize and use superstitious sects
and sexually exploit women or young girls by seducing,
coercing, deceiving or other ways should be punished
according to clauses on rape, or raping underage girl
offenses, under the criminal law.

Those who
swindle money or property by establishing or using sects or
other means should be punished according to articles on
swindle offenses in the criminal law.

Offenses
of establishing or using sects to organize, scheme, carry
out and instigate activities of splitting China, endangering
the reunification of China or subverting the country's
socialist system should be handled according to relevant
laws on endangering state safety offenses, as stipulated in
the criminal law.

All the money and property
collected by sects or criminal offenders who use sects to
violate laws, and tools and publicity materials used for
criminal activities, should be confiscated according to law.

Those who organize, plot or use sects for
criminal activities and those enthusiastic participants who
refuse to mend their ways despite repeated admonition should
be investigated and affixed the criminal offense
responsibility according to the criminal law and this
explanations, it says.

But those who surrender
themselves to law enforcement departments, or who perform
meritorious services, should be given lenient penalty or
exempted from penalty according to law, it says.

Those who were deceived or coerced into sects
and had already withdrawn from the sect will not be
considered as offenders.

There is
plenty of evidence to prove that Falun Gong is no ordinary
illegal organization, but in fact a cult, a commentary
published in People's Daily of Oct. 28
concludes.

A prominent feature of a cult is its
hierarchical structure, through which practitioners strictly
follow the instructions of their senior member and are
willing to sacrifice themselves for this spiritual leader.
Li Hongzhi, founder of the Falun Gong cult, demands that his
disciples think, act and even give their lives at his
command.

Members of a cult are subject to a
systematic form of mind control, and Falun Gong is no
exception. Li entices his disciples with the bait of
physical fitness, brainwashes his followers with his
heretical ideas and intimidates Falun Gong practitioners
with his "super powers."

In order to
gather more followers to his flock, Li fabricated heretical
ideas such as the "doomsday" theory and the belief
that the Earth will explode so as to frighten his disciples
into following his instructions without
question.

Li said he alone can postpone the
explosion of the Earth, he alone can help Falun Gong
practitioners enter heaven, and Falun Dafa alone can save
all human beings.

Incomplete statistics
indicate that more than 1,400 people across China have died
as a result of practicing Falun Gong, and hundreds of others
have suffered psychological distress.

The Falun
Gong organization collected money from its followers through
the illegal publication and sale of books, pictures, video
and audio tapes, and other forms of communication which
spread Li's lies.

Li and other core members of
the organization became rich through exploiting the wealth
and labor of Falun Gong practitioners and by dodging taxes.
Li is reported to have fat bank accounts
overseas.

According to the commentary, Falun
Gong is also a tightly organized cult. Its supreme organ in
China is the Falun Dafa Research Society (FDRS) in Beijing.
Under the FDRS, there are 39 general stations, 1,900
instruction centres, and 28,263 exercising sites,
controlling a total of 2.1 million
practitioners.

Li tricked the practitioners of
Falun Gong into joining his "kingdom," and
gradually separated them from mainstream society, eventually
convincing them to fight against it.

Since Li
ordered his followers to surround Guangming Daily in August
1996, Falun Gong has held 78 illegal demonstrations, each
with more than 300 people. Thousands of followers gathered
outside Zhongnanhai, the compound accommodating the
Communist Party's Central Committee, on April 25 this year
in the most flagrant breach of the law.

No
government can turn a blind eye to the cult's illegal deeds
in threatening people's lives and social stability. The
Communist Party, which takes the welfare of its people as
its prime concern, will take firm action in its ban on
cults.

For further information, please refer to
the following websites: www.china.com.cn,
www.peopledaily.com.cn, www.chinadaily.com.cn.